I’m unskilled at economics, so I may well be missing something, but this explanation doesn’t sit well with me. I think it’s because I’m not sure how well Marxian economics applies to the current conditions; As part of a university scholarship, I had to do an internship somewhere exceedingly corporate, and I was aghast at how there were entire divisions whose functions seemed to produce nothing of real value, just more metrics and dashboards and spreadsheets. I imagine people more learned than I have applied Marxian economics to problems like that, but trying to reconcile that situation with any notion of “value” makes my head hurt.

To be clear, I’m a big fan of Marx, even if I haven’t the patience for parsing economics definitions.

This is well articulated. Like many, I am also frustrated by the “They go low, we go high” strategy in which Democrat politicians hamstring themselves, but on the wider scale, it is useful to bear in mind that we are fighting for a fundamentally different world than what our opponents are (though certainly it would be great if elected officials could be a little less pathetic)

I wonder if this might have been why they shared it. Sort of like “We’ve got an idea that we think is good, but it also clearly needs work”

Sad news. fivethirtyeight made one of my favourite things on the internet. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/p-hacking/

It’s an excellent piece of science communication and dynamic data visualisation. I say this as a scientist who is increasingly drifting towards the science-comm side of research.

They did incredible work, and I hope that the people behind the work can find stability and fulfillment in whatever work they seek after this.

I hadn’t noticed this until you pointed it out, but yeah, their logos are fire

I once met some people who were in a huge, complex polecule and they joked that it was the only way they could afford homeownership in London.

What your favourite tree, and why? (Justifications can be as arbitrary as you want)

(I am craving of real tree content to replace this disappointingly false post)

It’s a particular shade of paint. It’s widespread enough in the UK that multiple brands do their own version of Magnolia. It’s often what’s used when people don’t want to have to decide what colour to paint, or in council housing, and it’s increasingly common in private rentals.